Been a bit radio silent this last week. The move has been in progress since Tuesday, and the time since then has been a blur. Each day was at least 12 hours of shifting boxes, packing, loading the van, unloading, and finally unpacking.

There is no graceful way to move. If you have beaucoup bucks, you can pay someone to do all the hard stuff (packing, loading, moving, unloading, unpacking) but there is always some effort and pain involved.

Since we aren’t rolling in the dough, we did a lot of the work ourselves.

Since we moved from Phoenix to the bay area, and have lived in an apartment for most of a year, a LOT of our belongings were in storage. But a ridiculous amount was also crammed into 1100 sqft of our apartment, complicatind somewhat our move.

The early move era

Among all the joys of apartment living, not much ranks up there with the friendly competition for the laundry units. At 9:00AM you can practically see the residents lining up to steal the machines as soon as the time locks on the doors open. Hoo BOY!

Today though, we will talk about the machines themselves. The washers are all HE (high efficiency) units. That means that you really don’t need much detergent to run a load. Really, about 2 & 1/2 tablespoons of Tide or your detergent of choice is all that is needed for a large load. (in the photo above, the cup on the left is all you need for a full load, on the right is the “usual” detergent scoop)

How wonderful is that? Detergent lasts a long time, clothes get clean, and all is happy, right?

Well, not so fast. It seems that the HE revolution is lost on all our neighbors, so continue to dump a cup or a cup and a half of detergent in each load.

Not only is this a waste (and believe me, most of my neighbors would enjoy spending less on their detergent), but it leads to a nasty side effect.

Namely, our clothes will smell like the perfume in the detergent last used. Ugh, heavy scent in all our loads, and worse yet, it seems to change.

My wife is away dealing with some family issues, so I have been home alone for almost 2 weeks (and will probably be home alone for another week and a half.)

I don’t mind doing household chores. I lived alone or with roommates long enough to not quibble about dishes or laundry. But, being in a house alone (with two dogs) is a lifestyle change.

Getting critical

Fact: Men use less toilet paper than women. So, we in general don’t need to restock the bathrooms. My wife kids me about it that I will go to the last square to avoid having to go to the pantry and grab a package. 2 weeks, and I am out. It is critical. I need my wife back.

I don’t feel the need to wash sheets every week. They were a week “used” when she left, so they are now three weeks old. Today, I felt it was time. Washing the sheets. Probably time to ditch the comforter since it will be in the upper 80’s this weekend…

My wife is a master of not doing dishes during the day. She will let them all accumulate until I get home from work. Here is where I am more diligent. I load the breakfast dishes before I head to work, and the dinner dishes before I go to bed. (She will hate me for this though).

I can go 2 full weeks without doing whites. Good to know.

The Dishwasher. My wife will spend hours re-arranging it to get one more meal in before running it. It is like an adult, real-life Tetris game to her. Funny thing is, I need to run them every three days, about 1/3 empty. I find that I run out of spoons in three days.

I use a lot less milk. The gallon we had when she left is still 2/3rds full, and it is spoiling. Oh well.

Grocery shopping is a lot easier (and cheaper). Of course I do several smaller trips, but in total it is a lot less expensive for one person.

Having a dog that requires medicine 4x a day is tough. It means I have to go home at lunch time (I can do the 5:00AM, the 5:00PM, and the 9:00PM fine, but the interruption of the work day sucks.) Just having Barb around at lunch time to handle that mid day pills is a huge thing.

A lot of little errands get delayed. I need to pick up prescriptions. I need to pick up my dry cleaning. I need to hit costco (as our TP is wiped out).